A Necessary Ingredient
by geoclaire
Summary: She couldn't help but ask. "Are you… do you…," she stumbled over the question. "Are you one of the people who…?" Lena's eyes flashed wickedly. "Of course. The girl of steel has rescued me more than once, do you think I haven't noticed her more appealing attributes? Her biceps alone are worthy of fantasies." Kara and Lena go out for drinks, and end up talking about Supergirl.
1. Chapter 1

The bar was dark and maybe a little musty – the result of Kara rather Lena picking the venue – but it was also, Kara decided, intimate. The music playing was something reasonably soft, with not too many harsh effects or squealing pops stars, and considered the right way, the lighting was low rather than just poor. This wasn't a date, but it mattered that Lena be comfortable, that she enjoyed herself. And whatever the bar's shortcomings, it did offer intimacy, and that would have to do.

Thus resolved, she picked up their glasses from the bar. To her credit, Lena had managed to find a red wine she was willing to drink even on the limited menu; Kara was fairly certain it was no coincidence that it was more than halfway down the pricelist, a nod to Kara's comparatively straitened income. Not being much of a drinker herself, she'd ordered two glasses of the wine, and now when she took them both back to Lena and the booth they'd found away from the main doors, Lena's eyes lit up.

"Have I lured you to the dark side?" she asked, taking the glass from Kara's hand, their fingers grazing accidentally. Kara raised her eyebrows in question, and she elucidated, "I don't think I've seen you drink wine before, I wasn't entirely sure you drank at all."

"Oh, well," Kara said. "I – that is – I've got a pretty poor alcohol tolerance? So it never seems like a good idea when I'm meant to be working?"

She raised the glass to her lips to hide her look of relief at coming up with the lie, but Lena didn't look away. No, she continued to gaze at Kara in the low light in a way that gave the young superhero sudden sympathy for the aliens on the receiving end of her heat vision. Did Lena have superpowers? Surely it couldn't be her look alone causing the heat that crawled up her neck in response. Kara took another mouthful of her wine and swallowed, putting the glass down.

"Good?"

She nodded fiercely. "Yes. Definitely. You have good taste in wine."

"It's just practice. Go to enough dull galas and work dinners and you'll work out what's worth drinking simply from habituation… that, and what they try and leave off the menu so you won't bankrupt the fundraisers."

Kara sputtered a laugh at that, and Lena smiled in response. Her fingers were wrapped around the bowl of her own glass, her nail polish so dark it barely stood out against the dark red of the wine, and Kara found herself watching the curl of them. She adjusted her glasses, and looked up to see Lena looking at her again.

"What?"

"You've got a little, ah…" Lena gestured to her own mouth, then when Kara didn't take the hint, leaned over. "May I?"

Kara nodded and Lena smoothed her thumb below her lip, picking up a drop of wine sitting below the corner of her mouth. She paused for a moment, looking at Kara, and then looked around and found a napkin to wipe her thumb.

"Um, thanks. Sorry I'm such a slob, probably they teach you how to drink wine politely at those dinners of yours."

Lena tipped her head, allowing the comment. "Perhaps, but the company isn't half as charming."

Kara could actually feel herself blush at that, and she looked down. Trying to calm down, she let go of the firm grip she normally held on her senses, letting her hearing roam the bar and pick up on other conversations.

 _"… axle broke while we were doing the lift, I don't know…"_

 _"… so we ordered the flowers but they sent the wrong colours…"_

 _"… that cape, you know. I'd go there."_

That last one made her twitch, and reach out for her wineglass again. Lena gave her a confused look, her mouth opening to say something, but Kara couldn't help but tune back in to the previous conversation.

It was three men sitting at the bar, clearly having beers after work, and just as clearly having seen the frontpages of the day's newspapers. Several featured Supergirl quite heavily, since she'd been involved in wrestling a pair of overly-tentacled aliens off the roof of a major bank the night before, and one – _not_ CatCo Magazine – had managed to get a shot that showed off what was, frankly, an indecent amount of leg. That was the one that appeared to have the attention of the gentlemen at the bar.

 _"Sure, superstrength sounds fun during the day, but afterwards…"_

 _"She must be sleeping with someone at that government agency. They've gotta be telling her what to do, or how would she always find the trouble?"_

 _"Well, if she's lonely I'm more than willing. Girl like that would need firm handling, reminder of who's in charge… I'd like to peel the costume off and bend her over something, slide my thumb – "_

Oh, _gross_. She tuned out of their conversation and back into Lena in a hurry, regretting ever splitting her attention.

"Is something wrong?" Lena, always perceptive, was peering at her in the low light. Kara dug her out a smile, horribly sure it looked fake and unconvincing.

"Nope! Just a long day, I really needed this drink after that." She scooped her glass off the table and knocked back its contents far too quickly.

Lena regarded her steadily over the rim of her own glass, barely half drunk. "Are you sure? You don't want to leave?" She glanced around the bar, eyes sliding over the men whose conversation Kara had overheard a moment before.

"No. I'm fine."

"Alright. Well, would you like another drink? Just one more, and then we'll feed you so you don't end up falling over yourself?"

Kara nodded, unable to find words to answer. Lena gave her a last searching look, then slid out of the booth, the fabric of her tailored skirt catching and dragging momentarily along the seat.

Kara waited with her head down, fiddling with her glasses. This wasn't a date, and yet she couldn't help feeling that she was letting Lena down, too distracted by those horrible men to pay her the kind of attention that she wanted to. Lena deserved better, she deserved Kara's full attention and a far nicer clientele, and perhaps they should, after all, have gone to the private club Lena had proposed. She groaned. The left lens of her glasses had a smudge, and she pulled them off to rub at it with the soft fabric of her sweater, resenting the irony of her improved vision without the glasses. The frames groaned under the pressure of her fingertips, metal warping, and she quickly bent the frame back into shape and put the glasses back on as Lena returned from the bar.

This time she slid in not across from Kara but next to her on the seat, and the glasses in her hands held not wine but whiskey. Kara quirked a doubtful glance at the glass Lena handed her. It wasn't a date, and yet the way Lena had just slid in beside her…

"I'm sorry, I should have asked. But you looked like you could use it, so." Lena shrugged one shoulder, held out her glass. "Cheers."

Kara raised her glass and clinked it against Lena's. "Cheers," she repeated dutifully, and took a swallow. It didn't matter that the alcohol content wouldn't affect her; it burned on the way down, and Kara coughed, looking up to try and smile at Lena despite the tears in her eyes.

She found Lena a lot closer than she was expecting. When she'd last looked, the woman had been a foot or so away from her, now she was close enough that their knees could conceivably touch. When she reached down, intending to adjust the hem of her own skirt – something pretty, and soft, and not at all worn for the specific purpose of going out for drinks with Lena after work – her knuckles brushed against the fabric of Lena's skirt, and she withdrew, blushing.

"I think I know what bothered you before," Lena said. She cocked her head, indicating the men at the bar. "When I went over to order these… I heard what they were saying."

"Oh, no. That's not – it's fine –"

Lena ignored her protests, kept talking. "They're being rather revolting, really. And I can't imagine how any of them think they'd ever have a chance with Supergirl. But I know she's… a friend of yours, and that can't be easy to hear."

Something seemed to glimmer in Lena's eyes when she said the word _friend_ , and Kara clutched her drink a little tighter. Lena didn't know, and yet…

"It's gross," she said faintly, and Lena smiled. Her eyes flashed bright green over the red outline of her mouth as she moved even closer, murmuring the next part for Kara alone to hear.

"From them? Yes. And you're very protective of your friend."

"Mmmhmm."

Kara took another mouthful of her drink. It couldn't possibly be getting her drunk, but with how close Lena was currently pressing to her in the booth, she felt the need.

Lena leaned back a little, regarding Kara's face. She bit her lip, seeming to consider, and then touched her fingers very lightly to Kara's knee.

"Although, I suppose one can't blame them," she said, smiling. Her fingers drew a line up the length of Kara's thigh, feather light but hot through the weight of her skirt. "After all, Supergirl really is something. It's hardly surprising that people fantasize about her, it would be difficult not to."

Kara stared at her. At the very, very red outline of her mouth and the flicker of her tongue as she enunciated _fantasize_ , the line of her throat as she swallowed.

"People fan – you – whoa." She set the drink down, needing something to do with her hands, but then stopped with them still hovering awkwardly. She couldn't put them in her lap without drawing attention to where Lena was still stroking her thigh and that – well, that would be a bad thing, probably. She swallowed, and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

"That can't possibly be a surprise to you," Lena said. "… she's a very attractive woman, you can't be surprised people would want to think about her. Touch her, take her to bed."

"Um, I guess," Kara said stiffly. "I guess I don't think about her that way."

Lena huffed a laugh. "No, I imagine you don't." Her fingers hadn't stopped in their slow, measured movement along Kara's thigh, and Kara found herself wanting to put her own hand over them. To make them stop, of course. Not to press into them, push them against her own flesh, encourage them gently higher.

Still. She couldn't help but ask. "Are you… do you…," she stumbled over the question. "Are you one of the people who…?"

Lena's eyes flashed wickedly. "Of course. The girl of steel has rescued me more than once, do you think I haven't noticed her more appealing attributes? Her biceps alone are worthy of fantasies." She drank down the rest of her whiskey, not gulping it but swallowing smoothly in a way that seemed somehow classy. Kara's was still sitting on the table, and Lena reached for it now. "Do you mind? I might need it, if this is what you want to talk about."

"No, go right ahead," Kara assured her, and Lena smiled again and knocked it back as well. Her fingers never stilled on Kara's leg, only slid down to cup the skin of her knee below the hem of her skirt.

"It isn't like that," she said, setting down the glass on the table and gesturing discreetly to the men at the bar. "Not so… crude. But I have thought about it."

Kara glanced at her from the corner of her eye, cursing the lead frames of her glasses and the way they impacted her sight. Were they still talking about Supergirl, or…?

"Not that I'd turn down the opportunity to bend her over something, you know. But mostly," Lena shivered, "I think about how closely that suit fits her. How it wraps around her hips, and how I could put my hands there over the fabric. It's soft, you know, I've felt it when she's carried me, and I'd be able to feel her skin underneath it. Feel how her skin is warmer than a human's, even before I slid my fingers under the back of her shirt and underneath that cape."

Her fingers had begun to move again, no longer simply tracing circles on Kara's knee but sliding very, very slowly higher. Slow enough that Kara had more than enough chance to stop her when her thumb slid beneath the fabric of the oh-so-soft, pretty skirt that Kara was maybe, at this stage, just about willing to admit she'd worn for Lena.

"She's warm?" she asked faintly, and Lena nodded firmly.

"Warmer than most people. Not so much you'd notice, usually – but most people get cold hands or faces when they're outside, and she's always warm."

"Oh."

Her mind raced. Was this something Alex had ever brought up before? She knew that she had a slightly elevated core body temperature, but for her extremities to be noticeably warmer? She'd never had anyone else comment before; no one else had paid as much attention as it seemed Lena did.

"Is that all?"

"Oh, no. Not at all." Lena smiled down at her hands, the fingers creeping higher on Kara's thigh just visible under the thin fabric of her skirt. "I think about the low neck of that suit. Mostly, how it cuts down at the back, and how that scoop shows off her neck… I'd like to gather up her hair, push it aside to kiss her there."

Kara bit her lip. Lena was talking about Supergirl's neckline, but her eyes were on Kara's. And her sweater neck wasn't a scoop by any stretch of the imagination, but it sure was holding Lena's attention. She breathed deeply on an impulse, was thrilled by the way Lena's eyes lit up and then her thumb tensed unconsciously tighter, sending a wave of sensation up Kara's thigh and between her legs. She knew she should stop, should stop this line of questioning and Lena's hand both, and yet…

"You want to kiss her neck?" she asked, and Lena nodded.

"Of course. I want to pull her hair back, kiss her neck slowly towards her earlobe, all along her jawline. Lick her ear and bite that jaw. And of course," she took a deep, shuddering breath, fingers stilling high on Kara's thigh. "I want to kiss her."

Lena opened her eyes slowly. She found Kara's eyes and stared into them, biting her own lip so that Kara couldn't help be aware of it. Her fingers had stopped moving, but Kara could feel the quick beat of her heartbeat in her thumb-tip, tapping a rapid beat against her own thigh.

She licked her own lips, coming suddenly aware of how dry her mouth was, how quick her breathing. Lena's eyes dropped from hers to her mouth, following the movement of her tongue, and Kara knew without a doubt what she'd been saying.

"Are we still talking about Supergirl?" she asked unsteadily, and Lena smiled that wicked smile.

"You tell me."

Her head whirled, caught between the look in Lena's eyes, her close proximity, her hand on her thigh and the heat between her legs, what Lena was saying but carefully _not_ saying, what Alex would say, the weight of Lena's hand and the smell of her hair and her perfume when she'd already leaned in so very close. Caught on the idea that maybe, perhaps, conceivably, this was a date.

She reached out with one hand, traced a line from underneath Lena's thick, smooth hair and around the side of her neck, curving up to caress her earlobe, her temple, the line of her jaw, ending with her fingers circling Lena's chin and her thumb just touching her bottom lip.

"I think she might like that," Kara breathed, and saw Lena's triumphant smile right as she leaned in to caress it with her own.


	2. Chapter 2

Kara rolled over onto her back and looked at the ceiling. Despite her lack of need for oxygen, she found she was breathing hard, the habitual motion ramped into overdrive by the sheer pressure of circumstance.

Beside her, Lena stirred. She rolled onto her side and reached a hand out, tracing a single finger down the length of Kara's arm.

"Where's your bathroom?" she asked.

Kara indicated its general direction with some vague gestures. Lena wiped her face with her hand and slid off the bed.

"I'll be right back."

She padded out of the room, buck-naked and soft footed on the floorboards. Kara glanced after her, then looked guiltily back at the ceiling. Her breathing slowly calmed.

Right. So... That had happened.

She stared at the ceiling a little longer. In the next room, the sink ran, and then the toilet flushed. The sink ran again, and then went quiet.

… if asked, Kara would have put 'going home with Lena Luthor' in approximately nine hundredth position on the list of 'things most likely to occur after work on Friday', notwithstanding that she had in fact been asked to drinks with Lena on Friday night. That moved it maybe eight places up the list, if only because it excluded the possibility of eating potstickers until she passed out (that took at least four hours, she'd tried) or having Alex present in her apartment. That would definitely have made it more difficult to bring Lena back there, not to mention put a serious kink in what the other woman wanted to do to her.

The bathroom door reopened, and Lena wandered back towards the bedroom, still gloriously naked. Kara glanced at her, then firmly averted her eyes, blushing.

The bedsprings twinged, and then Lena was sitting next to her on the bed. From there, it was very difficult to avoid seeing the three purple bruises left across her throat and left shoulder. Kara wondered about their placement, and then remembered that she'd just had a very in depth demonstration that Lena was right handed. Her blush intensified to extreme levels.

"Hey. Are you alright?"

"Mmmm-hmmm."

"… are you ever going to speak again?"

At the concern in Lena's voice, Kara couldn't continue to look away. Anyway, she didn't want to – Lena's eyes were a well of green, a sea she could easily drown in, and even before tonight she had been no stranger to the appeal of her body. She'd noticed Lena's pale skin and firm arms from their first meeting, the image of her red lipsticked mouth lingering in her subconscious for longer than she could have explained. Her soft thighs had taken longer to arrive on the list of characteristics Kara appreciated, but she was now reasonably sure that they would be taking a part in all future endeavours.

"Yes," she said. "m'sorry."

"Hmmmm."

It was soft, and when Kara hazarded a glance, Lena's eyes had gone sad. Lena turned away, reaching down to find the sheet and pull it over Kara. Then she stood, stepping away from the bed to find the skirt that Kara had recently – _very_ recently – pulled off of her. "Tell me, are you panicking because I'm a woman, or because I'm a Luthor?"

"What?"

Lena was already stepping into her skirt when Kara arced off the bed. The bedsheet left behind by the sheer speed of the movement. "That's not – that isn't it. Either of those," she objected, her hands falling open.

Lena stood up straighter in the middle of the room, her back arched and chin raised. Ready for battle, Kara realised guiltily, her topless state no challenge for her regal stance. Kara took a step forward, reaching out, and Lena let her come closer.

"It's not – I just – I didn't expect this," she continued. "I didn't think that – I didn't think. It never crossed my mind that you were interested, and then…" she rolled her head towards the bed. Its dishevelled state rather spoke for itself. "You have to admit it all happened rather fast."

At that, Lena smiled naughtily. "Certain parts more than others," she said, and by now Kara could feel her blush reach halfway down her chest.

"Give me a break, I've never done this before," she protested without thought, and suddenly Lena's face went soft and concerned.

"You haven't done what? … Kara?"

Kara looked down, kicked her toes against the carpet. "You know. Um. Gone home with anyone," she mumbled, and Lena's face went from concerned to sad again.

"Never?" she asked, and Kara only shook her head.

"It um – never seemed like a good idea? Not with… and people not knowing?" she shook her head again. "It always seemed dangerous, so…"

Lena watched her carefully, biting her lip and clearly thinking. After a moment, her hands went to her waist again, undoing the zip she'd pulled up only a moment earlier.

"I have an idea," she said. "Do you have some clothes I can borrow?"

# # # # #

"Yes, and then I'd like a family size vegetarian pizza and two of the shrimp and chicken, and two – hang on. Three? Yes, three garlic breads."

Lena hung up the phone after reciting her credit card number. "Half an hour, and I'm a little concerned that they knew the address as soon as they saw the phone number," she said. "Now, do you have alcohol in here, or do I need to have someone deliver that, too?"

Kara pointed out a kitchen cabinet for her. "I think you're going to be disappointed, though. I don't normally bother, so whatever's there will be left over from the last time Alex came over."

Lena raised her eyebrows. "I don't know whether to be pleased or concerned. Your sister seems to have taste, but I somehow doubt she'd leave anything worth drinking."

Regardless, she investigated the contents of the cabinet, standing on her toes to see the upper shelf. Kara smiled shyly at the sight. Lena Luthor, in her kitchen and her clothes, inspecting her alcohol collection with the bottom of her pant legs rolled up. The shirt fit her, but every one of Kara's pairs of pants had been too long – although they were admittedly pleasantly snug.

Lena emerged a moment later with half a bottle of tequila. "I think this is the best we're going to do," she said. "Can I look through your fridge? Actually, can I have blanket coverage to go through your kitchen?"

"Be my guest."

A minute later, two glasses of juice appeared on the living room table in front of Kara, followed shortly after by the bottle of tequila. Lena poured a measure into her own glass, swirling to mix it with the juice, then began to pour Kara's.

"Say when."

Kara watched her fill the glass slowly with tequila. Lena hadn't said anything, but Kara's glass contained considerably less juice.

"When," she said, when the tequila reached the top of the glass, and Lena handed it to her before climbing onto the couch beside her.

"Now," she said. "You're clothed, you have alcohol, and there's a truly horrendous amount of food to be delivered shortly. Is this helping, or would you rather I left?"

"No!" Kara protested, grabbing at Lena and making both of their drinks lurch dangerously. She licked alcohol off the back of her wrist and then continued more cautiously. "No, seriously, don't go. I got… spooked, I admit it, but please don't – don't go."

Lena looked down, and Kara realised she still had a hand tangled in her shirt. Blushing, she unwound her fingers, intending to let go, when Lena's fingers slid over her own and encouraged her hand lower, settling onto her thigh. Even through the pants it was warm, and very soft.

"I don't want to," Lena said. She held up her drink. "Cheers."

"Cheers," Kara echoed weakly, and took a gulp.

# # # # #

When the pizza arrived, Lena had Kara answer the door. Kara raised her eyebrows in question, but took the delivery.

"What was that about?" she asked once the door was closed, and Lena shrugged.

"The same reason we came here instead of to my apartment," she answered. "Reporters follow me around, and I assume you'd rather not have your face across a range of newspapers tomorrow morning?"

"No more than usual," Kara muttered, opening one of the pizza boxes, and Lena smiled.

"Well, the headlines would probably be less flattering and more blatantly intrusive," she said. "You know, less 'saves the day' and more 'mystery woman in company of notorious Luthor.'"

"Oh, but you're not," Kara protested around a mouthful of pizza. She swallowed, and continued, "I mean – notorious has such negative overtones? Famous is one thing, even infamous, but notorious doesn't seem fair."

Lena's look was fond. She reached over to tuck Kara's hair behind her ear, then retreated. "And that's why you're my favourite reporter," she said.

Lena ate her pizza with a knife and fork, which almost made Kara retract her statement on her notoriety. But then Lena didn't fight her for the garlic bread, and when she'd finished all of it and the pizzas bar the three slices Lena'd taken, and most of her glass of tequila, her earlier unease had turned into a softer, more fuzzy edged feeling that had her lolling across much of the couch.

"Thank you," she said, and Lena gave her a soft smile and put her hand in her hair.

"It was the least I could do," she said. She began petting Kara's hair, running her fingers through its length and then scratching at the base of her skull like a kitten, making Kara mewl and roll over to bury her face in Lena's belly. "I take it you're a little more comfortable?"

"Uh-huh." Kara peered up at her. Lena's makeup was long gone, the line of her eyebrows lost and her hair twisted back into a lazy braid. She was soft in the shirt Kara had given her, a t-shirt picked not because it was pretty but because it had been worn into a state of perfect comfort. "You look good in my clothes."

"Why, thank you." Her fingers scratched harder at Kara's head, and Kara felt her foot kick a little before she went boneless. "Mmm, good to know that works even on you," she mused, and Kara hid her smile against her belly.

"…Lena?"

"Mmm-hmmm?"

"It wasn't because you're a Luthor. I don't think about you that way. I mean – I do, 'cause you _are_ , but I mean – that wasn't why I got freaked out."

Her fingers paused in her scratching. "Okay."

"No, really," Kara insisted. She scrabbled into a seating position, wanting Lena to see her face. "It doesn't bother me. I'm not scared of that. I mean, it makes things complicated, but I always knew that, I just thought it – you – were worth it. I just," she struggled for a moment, trying to find words. "I didn't know you thought about me like that. Like this. I didn't know _I_ thought about _you_ like this."

"Oh, Kara." Lena raised her eyebrows. "That's, it's very sweet, but really? Really? I think half the aliens in space knew that you thought that way about me."

"They didn't tell me!" Kara objected, then caught on to what Lena'd actually meant. "Oh. Really?"

"Yes, Kara."

Kara percolated on that for a while, picking at the fabric on her own knee. She glanced at Lena under her lashes, then eased over towards her on the couch.

"Well… I know now," she ventured, and Lena's smile took on the wicked edge Kara was coming to know well.

# # # # #

If anyone had asked her, Kara would have put 'riding Lena Luthor's naked thigh in the middle of the living room while fingering her incoherent' approximately nowhere on her list of 'things most likely to happen after work on Friday'.

That was okay, though. Now that she knew about the option, it was going to appear a lot more.


	3. Chapter 3

When Alex walks in they're on the couch, and Lena is slowly riding Kara's fingers.

Her dress - a burgundy fitted thing that made Kara's fingers itch from the moment she'd seen it - was hiked up around her waist, her underwear lost somewhere in the couch cushions. Her heat was spilling down over Kara's fingers and onto her thighs, scorching through Kara's pants, and that's hot enough, but then Lena was also giving tips on how to touch her in between long, slow, heated kisses. And that was a whole other level.

Kara was fairly certain that, given time, she would combust without Lena ever touching her. It's a tossup as to whether it'd be Lena's lips kissing an open mouthed path down her neck or the words they whisper that'd do it (hook your fingers more, yes, like that, oh, now press here on my lower belly), but it'd certainly happen. She had developed a kind of pavlovian response to their presence now, them and the red lipstick she's sure Lena has worked out that she likes, and Kara didn't have a problem in the world with that. She was more than happy to let Lena work her up; beyond happy to let Lena get her off.

It's just a pity that Alex walking in ruined all of that.

Normally, Kara would be aware of someone's presence in her hallway long before they made it anywhere near her door: that she didn't so much as register Alex's approach until the door banged open was something she'd have to pin on Lena.

As it was, the first warning she got was the door bouncing off the wall, and then click of Alex taking the safety off her gun.

"Get the hell off my sister," Alex said. "Right now."

Lena had twitched away from Kara when the door banged open, but otherwise she'd remained unmoved. That was the Luthor training, Kara knew: no matter what happens, appeared untroubled and in control, and any other time it would make her heart ache. Now, though, Lena took a moment and then detached her mouth from Kara's throat, lifting up to neatly dismount her lap and then settle onto the couch beside her. Kara was only a little ashamed that her initial response was a feeling of intense loss.

"Now," Alex said again. When Kara looked up, the gun was aimed squarely at Lena, although with her eyes off the other woman, she could see the way her sister's eyes were tracking constantly between the two of them. "Explain."

Kara opened her mouth, but Lena - with that damned Luthor training, always ready, always on the ball - got in first.

"Explain? I thought you were a lesbian," she said coolly. "Although, if you need tips so badly, I should tell you about this wonderful invention called the internet. I could recommend you some websites, you know."

"Oh, nice try, Luthor," Alex sneered. The gun fixed in her direction, she turned to Kara. "Kara? What the fuck is going on?"

Kara had had to restart her brain after that line from Lena, so it took her a little longer than it should have to reply. "Alex - oh, god - we were just - uhh, everything's fine!" she said brightly, willing it to be true. She flexed her hand thoughtlessly, then blushed scarlet, thick liquid trailing from her fingertips and over the thigh of her pants.

Lena shifted on the couch. She'd tugged her dress down to cover herself, but she had her legs tucked under her, and now when she moved it drew attention to her mostly bare thighs and the almost scandalously high hem of her dress. Kara's eyes fell to it without thought; when she looked up she realised that so had her sister's. Lena's look, on the other hand, was one of pure triumph, and Alex gave an indignant snort when she realised how she'd been manipulated.

Lena rolled her eyes. "What's happening is that your sister is an adult woman capable of making her own choices," she said pointedly. Ignoring the gun still pointed in her direction, she got off the couch, leaning down to kiss Kara briefly on the mouth. "Call me, please," she said, and maneuvered her way around a highly irritated Alex and toward the door, picking up her shoes and bag on the way. "And if you can find my underwear, I'd like them back, thank you."

The door clicked shut behind her, and Alex belatedly holstered her gun. Her gaze swung again from her sister and to the door. "Kara, what the fuck," she asked again.

Kara was pretty sure she was still scarlet, which was interesting, since she couldn't remember if kryptonians were usually able to blush. Although she seemed to remember reading that when a person blushed their stomach lining would also turn red - which might explain the warmth she was currently feeling thereabouts.

"Uh." She stalled. "Um? Lena and I have been, uh, seeing each other. For a little while." Her sister's eyebrows didn't go down, and Kara added quickly, "like not long though? Maybe a couple weeks?"

Alex sighed, and came over to sit by her on the couch. On the far side of her, Kara noticed. Not where Lena had been just minutes ago.

"And you didn't think that was worth mentioning?"

Kara squirmed. "It's only been a couple weeks," she protested, and Alex rolled her eyes.

"Sure, that's the part that worries me. Not at all that you're apparently having sex with a _Luthor_."

Her blush must have settled down a little, because right then Kara felt it burn up again. "That's not fair," she said. "It isn't fair to blame her for things her family did, especially when they've all but disowned her. Not to mention, she did save your life once."

Alex sighed, unconvinced. "Kara I get that, more than anyone I do, but still. She's a Luthor, they have a bad track record, and she could be dangerous. What if she finds out about your other life? Have you thought about that?"

"Um, about that." Kara winced. Alex pulled a face. "She might… she already knows. I didn't tell her! She just- knew? I mean she's never come out and said so in so many words but uh yeah she… definitely knows."

Alex didn't even try to reason with her this time, just dropped her head in her hands. "Kara. How? How does this happen to you? And how do you not tell me? She has to sign an NDA, we need to keep you safe… Christ, of all the people in National City you decide to share your dirty laundry with Lena _Luthor_?"

"Hey, I didn't _choose_ ," Kara protested. "She worked it out for herself and for what it's worth, I've never confirmed it. She hasn't asked me to do anything or prove anything, we're just… it's understood. There's stuff we don't talk about and stuff we don't do."

"I will give you every dollar I own to never ever tell me details about 'stuff we don't do'," Alex said dryly. She sighed. "I guess it makes a certain amount of sense. You're always so careful about not… doing stuff… with anyone who doesn't know, so I guess this isn't surprising exactly."

"It's safer," Kara said softly. She shrugged when Alex looked at her, suddenly shy. "You don't want details, but I can… she doesn't ask questions about why I move her or how I position us, she just accepts it and moves on."

"Ugh, too much information!"

Alex studied her sister beside her on the couch. Kara was sitting with her back up against the couch. She had slouched down a little and was pouting, but she didn't have a cushion in her lap or her knees against her chest. She was giving Alex a sidelong look, but there were none of the twitches or hesitancy she'd gotten used to seeing when Kara was being… well, Kara.

"Ugh, fine." Alex rolled her eyes. "I'll get you the paperwork, and you can talk her into signing it. It's not like I didn't see this coming."

At that, Kara turned to her, eyes widening. "You knew that - then why the interrogation? Alex?"

"I didn't know it was Lena, but I guessed you were seeing _someone_." At her sister's confused glance, she expanded. "Twice this week _alone_ you've had deliveries from that Greek bakery on McGrath Street, and they don't even deliver. I guessed Mike had finally balled up and was trying to coax his way into your super suit."

Kara was aghast. "Oh, gross. Alex, _no_."

Alex sighed. "I can't believe I'm even saying this, but she is a way better option than fucking Mike." She shot Kara a glance, soft but curious. "Does she… is she good to you?"

At that, Kara did tuck her legs up onto the couch. She hid her face behind them, but Alex could hear her smile in her answer. "Yeah. Yes. She is."

"Good." Alex sniffed. "Now go wash your hands so I can hug you."

# # # # #

Kara had to psych herself up to call Lena later that night. She'd meant to call sooner, but there had been something large and reptilian trashing boats down at the docks, and fighting and serious talks never really went together well. As per usual, they wouldn't talk about it, but Kara knew that Lena would understand.

She picked up on the third ring, and Kara let out a giddy breath.

"Hello?"

"Hi," Kara said. "Sorry, I know it's late."

"Don't worry about it. I hear there's no rest for the wicked, but there certainly isn't for CEOs."

"You're - wait, you're still at work?" Kara spun on her heel, headed for the window. "Shit, you are. Should I go?"

Lena laughed a little incredulously. "Are you nearby, that you can see that?" she asked.

"No, I'm at home, but I can see your office from here and your lights are still on."

Lena paused. "Can you see me?"

Kara frowned, and squinted her eyes. Her vision was good, but it was a long way and at night, trying to see a dark outline against a bright outline against the dark sky. "Not really. If you came outside maybe."

"Hmmm." There was a moment, then a click sounded over the phone, and Kara thought she could hear Lena's heels. "How about now?"

"Yeah, I got you now. Hi."

"Hello," Lena said. She seemed rather darkly amused. "Don't get any ideas. I doubt anyone else could see anything up here, but I'm not about to put on a show."

"Whoa." Kara was a little thrown. "Um, that wasn't on my mind, but it is nice to know I could probably see if you ever, you know. Needed anything."

Lena only breathed softly for a moment, and then sipped a mouthful of something. Kara could hear the clink of the icecubes in the liquid, and guessed it was whiskey. Lena was never predictable, but she did have certain preferences.

"Would you come?" she asked.

Kara was scandalised. "Of course I would come!"

"Because it's me, or because you'd save anyone?" Kara didn't answer, and Lena prodded. "Supergirl?"

She'd never said it aloud, not since that moment in the bar two weeks earlier, and never when they couldn't both deny what she meant. That she'd changed that pattern now… it was telling.

"I'd come for anyone," Kara said honestly. "But I'd come racing for you."

Lena didn't respond to that. After a moment, Kara heard the liquid move in the glass again, heard the glass clink, but she didn't hear Lena drink.

"Lena?"

Lena made a frustrated sound in her throat. It was soft, not meant to be heard, but still Kara had the sense that it was directed more at herself than Kara. "Would you like to come over?" she asked.

Kara was thrown. "What, to your office? I mean… sure, it's a little late, but I don't think anyone much would see…"

"No, not here." Lena's voice was crisp again, losing the note of uncertainty it had held a moment earlier. "Would you like to come over to my apartment?"

"I - sure," Kara answered. "...I have some stuff I need to get you to sign, actually, but aren't you worried about - ?"

Lena sighed. "If you fly up, you won't need to worry about cameras," she said. "I can give you the address, tell you which balcony… I can be home in half an hour."

Kara was already up, looking around the room for a pair of shoes and a clean shirt, something she could wear to work in the morning if she had to. "I could pick you up," she suggested, only halfway paying attention to the conversation now.

"I rather suspect my assistant and driver might notice my sudden absence. And I'm not terribly comfortable flying, honestly."

"Right."

"Besides," Lena said. The door clicked again on the other end of the line, Lena letting herself back into her office. "If you get there before me, you can warm up my big cold bed."

Kara stopped in the middle of trying to put on one of her shoes without dropping the phone. "I can?"

Lena hummed, clearly amused at the new tone in Kara's voice. "I like to think so," she said. "It's a big bed, but you're very warm."

Kara swallowed. Between one thing and another, she'd never been to Lena's apartment. They'd met in bars, come back to Kara's apartment, had one swift and rather risque encounter against Lena's desk - Kara trying hard to neither make a noise nor damage the furniture - but she'd never been to Lena's apartment. Given her overall tastes for fine things, Kara was having trouble not fantasizing about what constituted a 'big bed' to Lena.

"Sure," she said weakly, and Lena laughed and told Kara the address.


	4. Chapter 4

Lena had seven scars on her legs. Two were on one ankle, a third was on her knee, and four were grouped as four light but parallel lines across the inside of her right thigh. The former were clearly the result of childhood accidents, but the last group were uncomfortably similar to scars that Kara knew Alex had. Lena also had the bone scars from a broken finger, three ribs, and both bones of her right forearm, all but the finger with the smoothness and stability of old breaks long healed over and the bone grown out. She'd clearly been young, or in any case pre-pubescent, when they'd broken.

She also had nightmares, which was something Kara was more familiar with.

Once upon a time, she'd spent a long time in space. Twenty four years half dreaming in the phantom zone, with her last remembered sights her parents and the aura of her exploding planet? She had blocked much of it out, could barely remember most of it consciously these days, but in her dreams… well. She could never recall most of it afterwards, never explain what had her bolting upright and flailing - breaking beds and furniture and in one memorable instance, part of the roof - but she could always remember the insistent sense of danger, the panic, heat washing insistently over her as she struggled to get away, and worst, the demanding belief that it was somehow _her fault_ …

Yeah, Kara understood nightmares. They'd returned, briefly, in the wake of the red kryptonite incident, but those at least had been different, even if the dream of a broken Alex crying and turning away from her had turned her guts to water. She'd never eaten anything that made her sick in her life, but after that night she'd spent hours locked in a bathroom, insisting to her worried sister and friends that she was fine, she'd just had some bad seafood. Or something.

It ensured that when Lena's sleep moved from interrupted - her breathing going from slowed to quick and then elevated, her heart rate picking up in concert with the frequency of the twitch of her foot - to disturbed, Kara had no compunction about waking her. She slid over in the bed, near but not touching Lena, and leaned over to trace her hand down the length of her forearm, careful to never close her fingers or hold on.

"Lena. Lena. You're dreaming, there's no one here but us. Lena, you're in bed in your apartment. Lena? Darling, you're safe."

She came awake with a start, controlled in a moment but noticeable for the twitch of her arm under Kara's fingers. Lena looked over, clearly identifying Kara in the slight light of the room, eyes wide and questioning. Kara let go of her arm, withdrawing her hand to her own side of the bed.

"You were dreaming," she said again, and Lena blinked, her eyes coming back into focus.

"Thank you." She sat up in the bed, pulling the sheets with her and lifting her hands to her face. She touched the corners of her eyes and then her mouth before turning away, lowering her legs over the side of the bed to get up and disappear into the bathroom.

Kara bit her lip, sitting up in the bed. After a moment, she turned to the side and turned a lamp on. Despite herself, she could hear Lena in the bathroom - washing her face and hands, carefully controlling her breathing. Her fingers holding onto the sides of the basin, the pads gripping and beginning to release as she calmed down.

Kara was still sitting up when she came back into the room. Lena had stripped off the slip she was wearing while in the bathroom, and now she went to a drawer, finding another and slipping it over her head, careless of her nudity. Kara hung back, watching Lena as she returned to the bed, pulling back the covers and turning her pillow over.

"I'm sorry I woke you," she said briefly. "I appreciate you waking me." She slid down in the bed, pulling the sheets back over her and tucking the pillow under her chin to her liking. "You can turn the light off."

Kara didn't make a move toward the lamp. "Are you sure?" she asked. "When I had - have - nightmares, Alex always got me to talk through them, so I could see how they weren't real…"

Lena tilted her head on the pillow, somehow managing to give the impression of confusion and scepticism. "Did it help?"

"Of course!" Kara was aghast. "Have you never tried?"

Lena bit her lip, rolling back on the bed. "No. I'd have needed someone to listen, and, well," she shrugged. "Mother always emphasised not showing weakness, and a nightmare would have fit right into that category. So."

Kara slid lower on the bed, still not turning the lamp off, and damning Lillian Luthor in her head. She wouldn't say it aloud, not to Lena, but everything new thing she heard about the woman made her hate her more. It wasn't bad enough that she'd preferred her biological son to the daughter she had adopted, nor that she had required Lena to become the perfect little Luthor without ever intending to put her in a position of power. No. The anti-alien bigotry alone was enough to make Kara fight her, but the breadcrumbs of information Lena dropped about growing up made Kara want to spend an hour in a soundproofed room with her.

"My mother was more along the lines of always carry a spare pair of underwear," Kara murmured, and against expectation, Lena actually laughed.

"Was that before or after you came out as Supergirl?"

"Before, but - wait, why are you laughing?"

Lena pursed her lips, trying and failing not to smile. "I just have to wonder what she thought you were getting up to that you would need spare underwear."

Kara wrinkled her nose, finally reaching over to turn the lamp off. "Well, not _that_ \- I told you that - but it was useful in college, and when Alex got her own apartment, and then working for Cat you really never knew how long you were going to be anywhere, and as Supergirl, well - you know how I get called off at a moment's notice."

"How very practical," Lena said, and Kara leaned over and bopped her over the head with a pillow, the way she would have hit Alex. She didn't even realise she was doing it until she saw Lena's face, amused and confused at the movement.

"Have I reduced you to assaulting civilians, Ms Danvers?"

"Oh! No - I - wait, you're not hurt, are you?"

She was mortified, but Lena only shook her head. "No, but if you're quite done, I have a teleconference at eight that I would prefer to sleep before."

Lena slid down in the bed again, closing her eyes. Her lashes were dark against her cheek, hair twisted back and onto her pillow, and Kara didn't know what to do. Lena was so beautiful it made her teeth hurt sometimes, but she didn't always know how to touch her. She knew how to reach out to her family, how to hug her sister, but other than that… well, she didn't touch a lot of people outside of the context of saving them.

As Supergirl, she knew how to relate to people - how to shake hands or snatch up a villain or even respond to the hordes of little girls who seemed to idolise her. She'd learned how to behave with each of them, how to be firm but fair and distant, how to let children cling to her skirt and hands, but this was different. This was Lena, and usually when she wanted Kara with her, she was the one to reach out and invite her nearer. Kara knew how to respond to that, knew how to seek her own comfort in Lena's body, but she didn't know how to offer it.

Lena was so much softer than she was. She held up a harsh face to the world because she needed to, always ready to defend against accusations and associations with her brother's crimes, but once you got behind that she offered herself up so freely. She kept up a reserve, the illusion of distance to protect herself, but Kara found her so easy to sink into. Even her body loaned itself to comfort so much more easily than Kara's did - her soft thighs and breasts, the curve of her neck and her waist such inviting places to sink her face and hands into. Kara wanted to offer that to her, but it was hard when she was the girl of steel. She was designed to fight and take damage, every line and angle of her cut to prepare for that, and it felt like there was no space inside that for her to be an object of comfort as well. Sex had been one thing - a revelation, in fact - but other forms of closeness eluded her.

She edged over in the bed all the same, reaching a hand over to Lena again. When it rested onto her waist, Lena's eyes opened.

"Kara, I'm not really in the mood…"

"No, I know. I know," she reassured. "Just… let me?"

Lena searched her eyes, her heartbeat picking up just a little in the artery beneath her chin. She couldn't have seen much, but she nodded once, lowering her head back onto the pillow.

Kara slid over in the bed. Lena was lying on her back, so spooning wasn't really going to happen, but she slid her arm tentatively over Lena's waist, pressing her face into the space beneath her chin. Lena was tense under her, so she nudged with her nose, nuzzling into the side of her neck.

"Relax," she said. "I'm told humans actually have to breathe out sometimes." Lena huffed a laugh, the air coming out her nose, and Kara smiled knowing her face was hidden. Beneath her, Lena's muscles relaxed slowly, her stomach becoming the soft expanse she was more familiar with. "See, I've got you."

Lena shifted beneath her. "I don't know if I can sleep like this," she admitted. Despite her words, her hand came up, finding Kara's on her stomach and interlacing their fingers.

"Sure you can," Kara reassured. She yawned, pressing her forehead into Lena's jaw. "See, it's all warm and soft and cuddly now. I'm not on you, so your arm isn't going to go to sleep, and you can still turn over if you want but we're all warm and safe now."

She felt Lena work her jaw, breathing through her nose. But then she adjusted her head on the pillow, tilting her head to press her cheek into the top of Kara's hair and breathing more deeply. Kara closed her eyes. Her nose was buried against Lena's skin, and she could smell her own shampoo and Lena's skin and the hint of sweat after her earlier nightmare, even traces from when they'd had sex earlier and the perfume Lena had worn during the day. She could not only hear but actually feel Lena's heartbeat, the rate dropping as Lena consciously slowed her breathing, her muscles gradually relaxing into Kara's. She made a point of slowing her own breathing, trying to further influence Lena into relaxing, and knew she'd succeeded when Lena's breathing evened out, her muscles going limp against her.

"See, you got this," she mumbled into Lena's neck. "This is nice, you're good to cuddle, I want this."

* * *

I meant to mention this before, but I'm also on tumblr under the same name if you'd like to hang!


	5. Chapter 5

Relatively speaking, they spent a lot of time in Lena's apartment.

The logic of it was straightforward. Despite her alternate identity, Kara's day job as a journalist meant that she personally received little to no attention from the general public. Lena, on the other hand, usually had at least one or two photographers hanging around her person. If she had started visiting a specific, nondescript apartment block on any kind of regular basis, the pattern would be noted and investigated until the exact reason was known.

If, on the other hand, Lena went home every night and Kara Danvers either came by her building or Supergirl dropped onto her balcony as discreetly as was manageable? That sequence was a lot less obvious to decode. And only a month or two into… whatever they were doing… Kara was just as happy to maintain her privacy. Among other things, it kept Alex's blood pressure comparatively low.

But Lena's couch, while obscenely large and fluffy and comfortable, wasn't as good for cuddling as Kara's was. There was plenty of space, it was both wide and long enough, but something about its impeccable leather surface simply didn't invite closeness in the way that Kara's beaten fabric couches did. And Lena seemed to feel it too; it wasn't difficult to convince her to lie against Kara and just watch mindless TV, or fall asleep tangled together, in Kara's cluttered apartment, but in her own home she was harder to coax into relaxation, less ready to shed her pristine work dresses or let Kara unpick her hair from its pins. Kara blamed the couch, but it as easily could have been the white walls or the classic art that covered the walls, the tasteful carpets, all of it detailing inherited wealth.

Still – she shifted on the couch, hearing the leather squeak beneath her – Lena could have settled down with her. She usually did. But today she seemed flustered, a state of being that Kara would previously have called unobtainable. After all, she'd literally seen Lena walk away from an attempt on her life with little more than mussed hair, in high heels and a dismissive attitude. If that didn't distress her, what was going to?

But when Lena paced past the couch again, she had to conclude that that was what was happening. She reached out, grabbing Lena's hand and tugging her to a stop.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Lena had twitched when Kara grabbed her hand, but now she came to a complete stop in front of her. As per the usual, she was impeccably dressed, her fitted white blouse tucked into a grey pencil skirt that hugged her hips and made Kara's mouth water, and her hair in a coronet of braids that Kara knew took more time than most of her meals. It was a normal outfit for her to wear to work, but an unusually uncomfortable one for her still to be wearing this late into the evening. She hadn't even taken her heels off, and no matter that she could run in them like most people could their trainers, Kara knew they weren't comfortable.

She also hadn't answered, only sunk her teeth into that red lower lip of hers and worried it, her almost unseeing eyes only loosely connecting to Kara's own. Kara gnawed her own lip, and tugged her hand.

"Lena? Is something wrong?" Carefully, she tugged her closer, mindful as always of her grip on Lena's fingers. "Did something happen at work? Did… did anyone bother you?"

 _Anyone_ was a code of sorts. It was simpler than asking if her mother or brother had found another way of harassing her, because in Kara's admittedly limited experience, the only times Lena showed distress were typically linked to her family.

"No, I -," Lena let herself be tugged closer, taking a seat by Kara on the couch. Kara wanted to put an arm around her, but tried to be satisfied when Lena absently dropped a hand onto her knee instead. "I need to tell you something."

"Um, okay?" Kara wasn't terribly well versed in relationships, but she was pretty sure those words weren't a good sign. "Did I – are you – how about you just tell me so I can stop making up things that are probably worse than whatever it is?"

Lena's fingers tensed on her leg before consciously releasing. Damn Luthor training. "It's about the alien detection device," she said.

Kara felt her mouth fall open. Whatever she'd been expecting, and she really wasn't clear on that at all, it would have been more along the lines of, _this isn't working_ or _there's someone else_ or, in a really dire state of affairs, _I accidentally told the press about your secret identity._ The alien detection device hadn't been on her radar for weeks, not since they'd come – she thought – to a carefully balanced truce of differing opinions.

"Um, what about it?"

Lena sighed, and took her hand away. "I tried to kill it," she said. "After – we talked, and you said how it could change how people live their lives, I thought," she shrugged. "Judging people based on who or what they are rather than what they're doing didn't seem so fair. So I tried to kill it, but the technology existed and people knew about it. Even your article helped to make that happen."

Kara swallowed. It was surprisingly difficult to do, her chest felt tight and her heartrate was rising, although not reaching anywhere near the heights of spastic pulsing she could hear in Lena's chest. "So you're releasing it?" she asked.

" _No_. God, no. Do you really think – no, never mind that." Lena drew away, her brow wrinkling momentarily before she consciously smoothed it out. "Kara, I didn't want to release it, but the Board knew about it and some of the public did. People knew that the technology existed, and I couldn't justify getting rid of it entirely. Not with the amount we'd invested into it, and the knowledge that people could try and make their own ripoff copies if they truly tried. So I agreed to – there's going to be a release of the technology. A limited release, to the local police only, granting them and only them access to the technology, so that they can use it in the line of duty if need be but for anyone else to have access to it is a breach of patents and privacy."

Huh. Well, that was a possibility she had never considered. Kara bit her knuckle, thinking through the implications.

On the surface of it, it seemed a good approach – a way of controlling the technology. And she was the first to admit that local law enforcement had little if any recourse when it came to trying to control alien based threats – that was one reason Supergirl was so popular among the city's residents. She didn't just stop bank robbings and muggings, she could go one-on-one with some of the galaxy's more dangerous aliens when anything short of the military or the DEO would be unable to manage them.

On the other hand, technologies had a way of getting out. And there was no way to guarantee that some unscrupulous young office might not make use of the technology in his downtime. Still, wasn't that a better approach than releasing the technology to a generally suspicious public?

"Okay," she said eventually. Lena glanced over to her quickly before averting her gaze back to her hands. Her eyelashes were unusually dark against her cheeks, an uncharacteristic overuse of her mascara or else an indicator of her pallor.

"Okay?" she asked.

Kara shrugged. "Okay. I don't love it, but it seems like a better use of the technology than most people would make, and at least it's a controlled release. It doesn't sound like I'm going to need to crack out my powers on a pogrom by morning."

Lena exhaled. "You're not angry?"

Kara reached for her. Now she knew what was going on, it was easy to understand Lena's tension. So far, since they'd been doing… whatever this was… they hadn't talked politics or plans. They hadn't had to negotiate on their necessarily different political views, the different agents that drove each of their actions forward. "No. I understand, Lena. Your company made investments and sometimes they're going to demand outcomes. You've done your best to limit the harm, what would I be mad about?"

She could see it when the tension drained out of Lena, the loss leaving her limp and compliant. She relaxed into the arm Kara had wrapped carefully around her shoulders, turning her face into Kara's neck. Her heartrate had dropped a little at Kara's controlled response; now it dropped further, approaching its regular state. Her heartrate was always higher than most, Kara knew: controlled tension keeping her perpetually upright and possessed, like Alex during her unhappiest periods. Now it lowered, but not even to that heightened rate, whirring like a hummingbird's heart in her ear. Kara wrapped a careful hand over her skull and pressed her face against her, using her thumb to rub gently at the base of her skull, easing out the tension headache she knew would soon be inflicted.

"Don't take my hair down," Lena murmured. "There was a press release earlier, and it'll be on the news; I might have to be on camera later."

"Alright," Kara kissed the top of her head. "Do you want to take your shoes off until then, though? And I can order us something to eat?"

Lena shook her head against her. "Jess ordered salads from WholeFoods at lunch, the fridge is full. There's that potato thing you like. Two containers."

"No quinoa?"

"I'm an elective vegetarian, not a hipster, Ms Danvers."

Kara laughed at that. Lena's heartbeat was slowing, closer to a rate that usually only occurred in the presence of alcohol or post sex, and she kissed Lena's forehead again, then her temple and her jaw before sliding out beneath her on the couch. She let herself into the kitchen and opened the fridge, finding the shelves loaded with not only the promised potato salad but also some magical concoction of eggplant and wild rice that she could barely describe but adored.

"What does Jess think you're doing with all this food?" she asked around a mouthful of rice. She swallowed. "Sorry, did you want something?"

"After," Lena said distractedly. Kara heard her turn the TV on. "I told her I took up running and I'm carb loading."

Kara wrinkled her nose. "Doesn't that sort of counterbalance the whole point of the vegetarian thing? If it's meant to balance out all the time you spend in the office?"

"Did you make a habit of questioning Cat Grant's eating habits?"

"Touché."

She dug her fork back into the glorious rice salad _thing_ before reluctantly stopping and going to find a plate. The incident with the pizza hadn't been a fluke, Lena genuinely believed that food should be eaten off actual ceramic plates with cutlery. Kara suspected this had to do with a severe lack of takeout in her childhood, but didn't want to ask.

In the next room, the news theme played. Kara barely registered it, trying to load as large a quantity of carbohydrate onto her plate as she could possibly manage, although she noted the uptick of Lena's heartbeat. Nerves, probably. Even though she would have filmed the segment hours before, Lena had had perfectionism beaten into her to an extent that –

Lena's heartbeat jumped into overdrive, and Kara leapt the servery bench and into the living room, her bare feet skidding off the stupid leather couches right as Lena swore, "Oh fuck _no_ not again –", and dove for her phone, already lighting up with Jess's ringtone.

Kara looked around. The room was empty, silent apart from Lena's newly intent phone call with Jess and the still talking TV anchor. She shivered. Lena wasn't making eye contact, only frantically gesturing with one hand while she spoke rapidly into the phone, making some kind of plan. Bewildered, she turned to the TV, played back what little she had overheard from the kitchen and tried to tune it in to what she was seeing on the screen now.

" – despite commitments by CEO Lena Luthor and the stated movement away from policies held by her brother, notorious criminal Lex Luthor, alien communities and supporters have rejected the proposed release of the detection device. They say that despite claims the technology will only be used in the service of police enforcement activities, leakage is inevitable. Further, minorities are questioning the safety of releasing the technology to the police at all, given the controversies around police handling of minority rights and allegations of police brutality, most significantly giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement. They say that sharing the technology could result in abuses, including routine – "

Oh, no. No no no.

Lena still wasn't looking at her, giving final orders to Jess over the phone. Her heels were looking prescient right about then, and Kara went to her as she hung up the phone.

"Lena –"

"Kara, I'm sorry, I have to go, my driver is waiting - "

"It's not that bad," she said. Lena's look was sceptical, saying she didn't believe her, but she bumbled on. "Lena – it's just one TV interview, a couple quotes, it'll blow over. I can help, Supergirl can say she supports the use of the tech for law enforcement – "

"But you don't," Lena said bluntly. "You don't, and I don't want you to lie for me. Even if you did, it wouldn't be enough to stave off the rantings of the bleeding hearts who insist aliens pose no risk when one throws you through a tower every other week."

Kara opened her mouth, closed it again. "Lena – "

" _Don't_." Lena breathed out through her nose, her eyes fluttering closed a moment. When they reopened she was more composed, only two points of colour high in her cheeks giving her away. "Kara, I'm sorry. But I have to go and try and smooth this over, try and spin it in a way that doesn't put alien rights and my reputation back ten years, that doesn't sound like I'm making it easy for every xenophobic, racist cop in the city to _beat up on alien children_."

She was breathing hard again by the end of it. And her heart rate had never dropped back down from that panicked rate that had made Kara jump over furniture. Kara stepped back, cleared a path for her to the front door.

Lena's hands grasped at each other before she stilled them, collecting her jacket and the bag she'd put down a bare hour earlier. She still hadn't eaten, but Kara didn't stop her, only stood still when Lena stopped instead of passing by her.

"I'm sorry, Kara," she said again, more softly. She hesitated, then leaned in. In her heels Lena didn't need to lean up, and Kara let herself be kissed, knowing better than to put her hands on Lena's hips or hair. "Don't wait up."

She closed the door softly after her. The TV was still playing, the news anchor already moving onto her next story, but even from the doorway Kara could see the meal she had dropped spread across the floor.

* * *

I'm also geoclaire on tumblr if you wanna say hi. ;)


	6. Chapter 6

The first person Lena could remember holding her was Lex.

The last is Supergirl, and if she thinks about that too hard the irony becomes a sharp and hurtful thing that jabs at her, between her shoulder blades and under her ribs, everywhere she remains soft and vulnerable despite the carefully constructed armour of her money and attitude and clothes.

Each time, she had been confused at first. Why the older boy, her so-called brother, wanted to be around her when his parents so blatantly did not. She did her best, learning to read from her tutors and stretching her hands on the piano keys until she could span five and then six keys, kicking her legs under the piano stool of the Luthor Grand, but Lex's parents' interest in her never reached much above vague approval, the level of recognition afforded when the paired Irish Setters learned to ask to go out rather than messing the endless white carpets. She tried for years, practicing hours on that piano and straining her eyes reading in the dark to cover every last aspect of her school work, and earned nothing more than strained ligaments and gold rimmed glasses.

But when she was five Lex first invited her into his treehouse, and when she was seven her legs were finally long enough to reach the ladder steps without his help, and when she was eight he told the cook that she didn't like cauliflower, and when she was ten he told her she looked best in red and that it brought out her eyes a week before he went away to boarding school.

(When she was four, he held her hand in the backseat for the first car journey she could remember making.)

When they had arrived at the Luthor House and Lillian introduced them properly, told Lex that she would be his little sister from now on, he had looked her up and down and then hugged her. It was the brief, hard hug of an impetuous boy, but he had taken her hand again after and shown her to what would become her rooms, promised he'd see her again right after the women had cleaned her up and changed her clothes for the waiting cameras.

It meant a lot to the little girl who could barely remember the home from before her time in the orphanage, who couldn't yet see out the car windows, who found the echoing of the long hallways frightening and disorienting.

But when she was six he had piggybacked her through the house for an entire afternoon, taking her giggled haughty commands and announcing their progress in the voice of a British horse racing announcer until Lillian yelled at them both and he ran down the long corridor away from her, skidding around corners and laughing until he forgot the step outside her bedroom and tripped.

Lena went straight over his shoulder and broke both the bones in her arm, and if she thinks about it too hard she can still remember the noise they made when they snapped.

It's the most pain she can remember feeling before the day Lex was convicted. When all his justifications and explanations and denials fell away, and she realised that the brother she adored had been lying to her for years. And that she loved him anyway, and he would never leave prison again in her lifetime.

When Supergirl – _Kara_ – is thrown into a wall in front of her, Lena hears that same wet crunch. That same slightly clicking grinding noise of bone moving against itself.

Kara gets up, though. She's bleeding from above her eye and _oh god_ that noise was her face hitting the wall, but she gets up and actually backchats the alien doing its best to pry her away from Lena and rip her limb from limb.

 _Seriously, Kara?_ She thinks, but doesn't have time to say, before the alien lunges at her and Kara – again – snatches her up and deposits her behind the front desk of the L-Corp lobby. Most of the other staff have already managed to beat a hurried retreat, and Lena spares a moment to be grateful that at least that much of the fallout from the release of the alien detection tech has been avoided. If anyone is going to be punished for it and the choices she'd made, it should be her.

But, " _Stay here_ ," Kara orders before she turns back to fight the alien – the other alien – and Lena really, truly, doesn't want to cause more trouble at this stage but she's also pretty sure she'd just heard Kara's cheekbone break against the wall, courtesy of kryptonite-imitating tech that Lex had manufactured years before. Still, she darts back in, punching the alien in what probably approximates to its throat before it grabs her cape and flings her aside again.

"I only want the Luthor," he insists, and Christ above it still _hurts_ to be identified that way but she knows why he's doing it. She's the one releasing the alien tech, she's the one making it harder for him and others like him to live their lives unhindered, even if this particular alien could never truly pass and his possession of Kryptonite makes his actions suspect at best. She would wonder whose side he was truly on, if he weren't in the process of beating the living shit out of Supergirl.

But only three nights ago Kara had cradled her head against her shoulder after they were done having sex. A week ago, she nudged Lena awake from dreams of Lex's execution – much mooted but never planned – and pressed herself all along Lena's side when she couldn't get back to sleep. Ten days ago she rubbed Lena's head, soft and slow and threading her fingers through her hair, until the tension headache so persistent she forgets it exists faded away and she dropped to sleep before she could reciprocate, only to find a still-clothed Kara pressed against her back when she woke needing the bathroom.

She still isn't sure why Kara had wanted to hold her. Not the first time, or the last. But if nothing else, Lex taught her that you protect the people who are yours. Whether you should, whether you're in the wrong, whether you'll only hurt them more later.

Whether or not they should hate you.

"Lena Luthor is one of _my people_ , in _my city_ , and you don't get to mess with my city!" Supergirl shoots back, and there's a sick feeling in her stomach but Lena stands up from behind the desk anyway.

"I'll go with him," she says coolly.

Supergirl's – no, Kara's – mouth drops open. She's different like this, stronger and bolder and more certain, but in this moment she looks every bit the timid Kara Danvers.

"No you will not," she says, but Lena steps around the edge of the desk anyway, picking her way through concrete rubble and debris towards the other alien.

"I don't want anyone else getting hurt," she says, and Kara's face fills with indignant horror. Lena wants to look at her longer – she's smart enough to know she probably won't see her again – but she can't stomach seeing that expression of pain.

Instead, she shows her empty hands to the other alien, and he smiles and lashes out with his tail. It knocks her to the ground. Something crunches, but then her head and her hip hit the ground and all of it hurts too loud for any of it to stand out, her blood ringing in her ears and her heart racing, adrenalin-nausea rising. But it's not so bad, she can take it, and she braces for another hit.

Instead, there's a volley of gunshots and a flash-bang, and a moment later the alien falls across her legs. He twitches twice, grinding her leg into broken glass on the floor, and then goes still.

And then there's Alex Danvers and Supergirl, tugging the alien bodily off her. She can't hear a damn thing but Danvers is checking her for major wounds and then Kara's yanking Lena into her arms, pulling her off the ground and into the air. Danvers actually looks worried, and Lena wonders why. But probably there's another disturbance, some other fallout from the goddamn tech and the way the goddamn press decided to announce it to the world, and she's got other places to be.

When she started this she was thinking about Kara Danvers, and the way her sweetness cut through her so far that it seeped out even the mask she wore as Supergirl. Lena didn't think about the politics of it, never thought they'd matter, because as amusing as it might be to have a Luthor and a Super sharing sheets behind closed doors, she'd never expected to bring it out into the light.

Now, it's still meant to be behind closed doors but the link between Luthor and Super is present for all to see. They don't know that she is the one who coaxes Supergirl to relax into her orgasms, that Lena has a real taste for touching her with her pastel skirt rucked around her waist, but those are details. The truth is the relationship, the closer ties between the two of them, and the way that they will drag Supergirl down with her.

She wonders what would have happened, years ago, if she had followed that first quirk of fear of Lex, if she had let that broken bone be something that stood between them instead of tied them together. But Lex had leapt up and shouted for the house staff, held her hand all the way to the hospital and shouldered the accusations from Lillian, and so Lena had gone back to him, loved him, let him drag her down.

Kara calls while she's still in the hospital. Her head is still ringing, and her arm is in a cast again – slender, black, far more discreet than the green plaster Lex once talked her into – but she bows to the inevitable. Lena declines the call, and texts her driver to take her home.


	7. Chapter 7

Quick heads up that this chapter goes some ugly places. There's some suggestions of sexual and other violence, however there is not rape or sexual violence. Regardless, I don't want anyone feeling blindsided.

* * *

Kara was already annoyed when she landed on Lena's balcony.

She had finally been released by the DEO after an hour - under protest - under their sunlamps, and had immediately swung by the hospital, even changing into Kara Danver's clothes to hopefully gain less attention. Questioning herself, she had gone so far as to pick up flowers, only to find that Lena had already checked out and left.

Checking her phone showed she didn't have any missed calls or texts, and a quick call to Alex confirmed that neither she nor anyone else at the DEO knew anything more about Lena's whereabouts. They hadn't picked her up or debriefed her, knew nothing after Kara had dropped Lena to the ED before returning for her own debrief and medical care.

All of which meant she'd either been kidnapped, or - far more likely - she'd checked herself out and gone home without so much as telling anyone.

Kara let her feet thud onto the balcony as she landed, enough to rattle the building but not damage it. It was petty - especially given she was doing her best to be discreet, since she wasn't arriving in her Supergirl regalia - but she was pissed off. And that didn't get any better when she went to the balcony door Lena always left open for her, and found it locked.

She very nearly treated it to a burst of heat vision. Instead she breathed deeply and rapped her knuckles on the glass. It rattled, too.

It took several heartbeats for Lena to appear. She was on the far side of the room, behind one of her obnoxious couches, and moving slowly. Still, she seemed to hesitate, lingering at the far edge of the room before circling around to the door and unlocking it, stepping back to let Kara slide it open.

She had one arm in a sling, white gauze holding up the plaster cast that wrapped her right wrist. It seemed out of place against the rest of her outfit, the sleeveless blouse and fitted skirt now smeared with dirt and blood. If she'd had time to shower, probably she would have already replaced it with one of her unending collection of silk scarves, something subtle but striking that enhanced her overall presentation. Probably that lack of time explained the state of her hair too, its clasp long gone but the pins still present so that it draped across her shoulders in a heavy mass.

Kara reached for a pin about to drop, confused when Lena swayed back out of her reach, until her eyes fell again to the plaster cast.

"Oooh, sorry," she said. "Does it hurt a bunch? Is it the same spot as last time? Alex said that was bad for a break, so it takes longer to heal. Did you get good painkillers at least? I hope so."

Lena stared at her. "It's fine," she said. "I've had worse."

Kara paused. Lena had yet to move aside to let her further into the apartment, and for the first time she realised the lights were off.

"Does your… does your head hurt?" she ventured. "Alex said you might have a concussion, and that you should take it easy. I think she was worried, actually, although she wouldn't say so."

Lena shrugged, finally stepping away from the door. She turned her back on Kara, making her way into the kitchen and opening what she knew was the liquor cabinet.

"No concussion," she said, emerging moments later with a glass of whiskey. Kara eyed it carefully, the way Lena held herself tight upright, and guessed it wasn't her first glass.

"Uh… should you be drinking? With your painkillers?" she asked uncertainly, finally moving away from the door.

"Probably not."

Despite her response, Lena took a gulp from the glass, her eyes meeting Kara's over the top. Kara took another step closer and then stopped, suddenly unsure what to do with her hands. Perhaps she should have brought the flowers after all.

"Well, you wanna tell me why you left the hospital without telling anyone?" she asked instead. "I came back to find you and was told you'd checked out. No text, no call… what was that about?"

That finally got a reaction, although Kara wasn't sure if it was the question or the tone. Lena turned to her, her face incredulous.

"As opposed to what?"

Kara felt her mouth drop open. "Lena," she started, circling around the couch towards her. "I already told you I'd come for you."

Lena stepped back from her, and she felt it like a slap. Kara froze, her hands open, but Lena didn't relent.

"Well, here I am. What do you want?"

Lena's voice was low and sharp, deadly. Everything that Kara had been taught to expect from a Luthor and nothing she'd ever seen from her lover; Lena's back straight against the wall, the glass held low and tight. Kara stared at her.

"What the _hell,_ Lena," she sputtered. "What. the. Hell. I went to the hospital looking for you and you just left? Like that was normal?" Lena's face didn't change, and Kara tried again. "Okay, how about today? What the hell was that? You were just going to go with that guy? I know you carry but what the hell was the plan?"

For the first time Lena's face showed something, a flicker of confusion rather than the blank, defiant mask she'd worn a moment before.

"I didn't have a plan," she said, and Kara gaped at her.

"You - what. What? You were just going to _go_ with him?" She could hear the edge of hysteria in her own voice, but she couldn't stop it.

Lena shrugged, one shouldered. "You were going to let me go, what's the problem?"

It was meant to sound indifferent, as disinterested as her posture - neither making eye contact nor even turning to face Kara. But her voice held a sharp note, some part of her control worn to fraying, and that was what Kara heard.

"When I thought you had a plan!" she exploded. "I thought you were trying to create an opening and I didn't even want you doing that! But what, you were just going to _go with him?_ "

"He _hurt you_ ," Lena spat back, pushing out from the wall. "Over the alien detection device. Yes, I was going to go with him, because it was my _fucking fault_."

"He was going to kill you! Over that stupid device!"

"Yes, because I _made a mistake_. Because I miscalculated, and didn't understand what the response would be, and I thought it would be fine and it wasn't and I can live with that, I can bear that. The consequences are mine, but I got you hurt."

Lena had leaned forward when she argued, gesturing one handed as best she could, but now something flickered over her face and she stepped back against the wall. "Wait. Is that why you're here?"

" _Yes_ , because I'm not hurt, you are," Kara snarled. "Half an hour under the sunlamps and I was fine, but he broke your arm, Lena! Again!"

That ugly thing flickered over Lena's face again. Anger, Kara would decide later, but mostly fear. But she didn't show it in the moment, only slugged back the last of her whiskey and dropped the glass so it bounced off the carpet between their feet. Then she started pulling at the buttons on her own shirt, yanking one handed so that they tore from the shirt and spun out across the floor.

"What…" Kara's eyes dipped to Lena's breasts, her bra bared beneath the torn neck of her shirt, then rose to her eyes. Her anger fled, leaving her bewildered.

"This is what you came for, right?" Lena toed off her shoes. The second one caught on her heel and she kicked savagely until it flew loose, leaving her inches shorter. She pressed suddenly into Kara's chest, the cast a harsh barrier between them.

Kara caught her, and then Lena was standing up on her toes to kiss her fiercely, her lips pressing hard and fast, nothing soft to them. Kara opened her mouth on a gasp, and Lena swept inside, pushing and tugging at her, her mouth hot and slick and demanding.

Kara kissed her back, hands rising to grasp at Lena's waist and then her hair, but her hands grazed the open sides of Lena's shirt along the way and she jerked them back, lifting them instead to Lena's shoulders to ease her back.

"Lena, no," she said, and Lena's eyes flashed and then burned. Her already high heart rate kicked into overdrive.

"Of course not," she sneered, stepping back. She yanked at her shirt again, tugging the sling over her head when it got in the way, and dropping both onto the floor. Then she knelt, her hands on Kara's thighs and her eyes furious. "Is this it? Submissive enough for you? Congratulations, you've finally got a Luthor on her knees for you, ready to be punished as you see fit. I won't drag you down any further, Supergirl."

Kara stared down at her. Shirtless, Lena's raven hair stood out against her pale skin with shocking vividness, making of it a dark depth in the dim apartment. Her lipstick was long gone, gnawed away in distraction and pain hours earlier. Only her eyes held colour in her white face, and even their deep sea green was muted in the greyness.

"Well?" Lena prompted. She rocked her hips forward, but swayed, fingers clenching on Kara's thighs to stabilise herself. "What are you waiting for?"

It was the loss of balance that gave it away. Lena could out-drink Alex, probably, and not so much as slur her words until she fell into an unconscious sleep. She had that much poise, that much practice, at not appearing sloppy in public. But it would still affect her balance, however slightly, and now she was looking for it Kara could see the way her pupils were large and glossy, more alcohol on her breath than the single glass explained. That was why she was giving away so much more than she ever would usually.

"Come here," Kara said.

Lena resisted initially, but when Kara put a hand on her head she let herself be guided, pressing the side of her face against Kara's thigh. She would have nosed up the bottom of the skirt, but Kara held her still with a hand in her hair.

"You thought I came here to punish you. For releasing the alien device to the public. And because I had to protect you."

Lena stopped pressing her face into Kara, going still. Kara let her be silent for a space of heartbeats, then nudged her gently with a knee.

"Yes," she muttered.

"And because I got hurt."

"Yes."

Kara sighed, loosening her grip on Lena's hair. She rubbed her thumb across her scalp, pressing into the divots behind her temples and trying to release the headache that showed so clearly on Lena's face.

"Did you ever stop to think that I get hurt every day?"

Lena tensed again, then let out a slow breath when Kara kept rubbing at her head. Her muscles didn't relax, but after a moment she answered.

"You choose to do that. To protect people. But I… I was responsible, and you got hurt… I heard your _bone_ break, Kara."

Kara. Kara, not Supergirl. Well, that was something. She scratched at the base of Lena's skull, trying to think, and the kneeling woman squirmed against her, her cast scraping against Kara's knee.

Wait. Her mind raced back. To Lena's broken arm, the old bone scars she'd seen on that wrist, the matching ones on her ribs. All of them old, dating back to at least her childhood, and Kara'd wondered how she'd broken them and Lena had never said.

Jesus. Was that what this was? Had someone broken those bones on purpose, punishing Lena for her mistakes? Kara had hated Lillian Luthor before, thought her cruel and manipulative, but she'd never guessed that it might have gone this far. That she'd hurt a child.

"That - my bone breaking," she fumbled. "That scared you?"

Lena didn't answer, only released an exhale against her thigh. Kara tried not to notice the way it made her stomach clench, heat rising.

"But - Lena - I'm not hurt? Not really, his tech didn't really mimic kryptonite well. As soon as I got away from him I started to heal, and seriously, I've had much worse."

Lena froze, then pushed away from her leg. Kara let her go, her fingers catching and tugging sharply at a hairpin, but Lena didn't seem to notice.

"That's not the _point_ ," she said. She shook her head frantically, and Kara tried to remember if she'd ever seen her this discomposed, this disorganised. She gestured with her casted arm, wildly enough to make Kara flinch. "This won't be the only time. This is just the first time, the first time that I fuck up, and it'll happen again. It'll happen worse, and you should - you should go. Before I hurt you more. I won't meant to, but I will, and Kara, you - ," she shook her head, "you deserve better, you need better than a Luthor who will just drag you down."

"That's what you think," Kara said softly. She felt sick. "You think I came here to punish you."

Lena didn't say anything. Her eyes were a mess of defiance and acceptance. Then she closed them, and nodded.

"Okay. All right."

She didn't want to guess what Lena was thinking when she reached down and tugged her up from under the arms, putting her back on her feet. Nor when she tugged her to follow her, back through the still open balcony door. But they'd been through this before, and she'd said all that she could say.

It hadn't stuck, and now she was left looking for a way to get through to Lena - to communicate in a way that was felt more than spoken.

She could have used her superspeed to make a point, and didn't. Only brought Lena, still shirtless, out to the edge of the balcony, facing her outward and stepping behind her. Pressing her upper body down onto the wide railing, her broken arm pinioned beneath her, before Kara threaded her fingers back into her hair, just barely holding her in place.

"Is this it?" she asked. "What you expected from me?"

She leaned forward, pressing her weight into Lena from behind and bracketing her head with her elbows, trying hard not to put weight onto Lena's broken bone but knowing it was probably inevitable. Trying not to make this worse than it needed to be.

Lena gasped, and Kara spoke into her ear.

"Is this what you want? For me to bend you over here and punish you for doing something that might have hurt people?" She paused. "For me to make you stare out over the city while I f-fuck you? Fine. If that's what you want, what you really want, I'll do it."

She let go of Lena's hair, her fingers instead sliding over her scalp in a caress.

"But if that's what you want, we'll talk about it first. About boundaries, and limits, and - safe words? Safe words - and it's not going to be like this. Not where you're scared I'm actually going to hurt you, because I'm not, not ever, not for something like this. Because no matter what you think right now, you didn't do anything wrong.

"You didn't hurt me, and you didn't try to hurt anyone else. You did everything you could to make the tech safe, to make it into something that could help people instead of hurting, and someone took that the wrong way, and that isn't your fault." She hesitated. "Last night… do you know that was the only violent incident? The alien who came after you. There were protests and grumbling and a lot of nastiness on Twitter, but the only person who got violent came after _you_ , not anyone else. And even that wasn't legit."

Lena breathed heavily, her cheek pressed into the cool brick. "How do you know that?"

Kara sighed. "Because of the kryptonite imitating tech. Think about it, does it make any sense that someone who objects to Luthor technology on general principle would have kryptonite imitating technology? So we looked into him - okay, Alex and Winn looked into him - and traced back a bunch of money and leads. And found out he'd been hired by one of your competitors to damage L Corp and improve their stock. He didn't even care about the technology, and neither did they, they just thought it'd be easy to make you look bad. Other people are unhappy, but no one else is angry enough to get violent just because one TV anchor decided to link you to everything your family did."

"But they aren't _wrong_ ," Lena argued. "The tech is - it's dangerous, and it's Luthor money, and I'm - I - "

" _You_ are more than your family, and who they are and what they did to you."

Lena gasped again, her mouth pressing open against the railing of her balcony, and began to cry.

Her shoulders shook beneath Kara's, her whole body breaking into a tremor that felt like she'd been holding it off for days. And Kara tugged her up in a heartbeat, spinning her in her arms to press her face into her own shoulder, wrapping her arms fiercely around her.

"You are more than your family," she whispered again. "... you act like I'm the one who has to put up with everything, like I'll just disappear when you make one mistake, when you are the only person who could possibly understand and tolerate the way I disappear on a moment's notice. When you've tried so hard to protect my privacy, put up with my nerves and handled my overprotective sister. Darling, I already told you. You are more than your family, you are more than that _to me_."

Lena sobbed harder at the endearment, and Kara held her closer. She stroked her fingers repeatedly through Lena's hair, holding her in place with a hand around her waist as she began to pick out the pins that still held it back, dropping them on the balcony as she went. Lena gripped onto her shirt, fingers twisting in the fabric as she cried, and Kara smoothed her hair again and again until she began to calm.

"Thank you." Lena's voice was thready, her throat clearly worn from crying, but Kara heard her without trouble. She hugged her again.

"I'm here for you." She kissed the top of Lena's head. "Do you want to go inside? Maybe shower, your clothes are filthy."

Lena looked down, seeming to notice her own state of dishevelment for the first time. She flushed, hands coming up to cover her lacy bra, and nodded.

"There better not be any photojournalists around," she muttered, and Kara snorted.

"You didn't seem to care a minute ago."

Still, she wrapped her arm around Lena's shoulders, guiding her gently over the tiled balcony and through the sliding door. Then she turned the light on, and closed the door.


End file.
